grace, she took with her, it appears, her bag
in one hand, and in the other hand an
umbrella, driving-whip, and fishing-rod. The
driving-whip is generally represented only
by a switch at the Norwegian posting-houses,
and it is the "greatest resource in the world"
to have the fishing-rod "to throw into the
nearest stream without fear of a loud holloa!
if kept waiting for, or in want of a meal."
Her Grace regretted afterwards that she had
not also carried a gun. "The wild fowl," she
tells us, "were flying about in the most
provoking manner, and could be had for the
shooting, and I vowed I never would set foot
in Norway again without a gun, nor should
any lady do so, unless she has some one to
shoot for her."

A general rule given by her grace to those
of her sex who follow her: "Ladies, I must
impress upon you, you must wear short
petticoats in Norway, and see your high boots
rubbed with cream every morning." Duchess
Fan of the Hobnails adds a few more touches
to the picture of herself. She carried slung
over her shoulders, on one side, a box of
colours, on the other side a sketching-board.
She became very hungry in the northern air,
and "five meals hardly satisfied her appetite."
Having made tea in a mountain hut we learn
incidentally that "after six wooden bowls'
full, I felt quite equal to sketching this new
phase of habitation." She has beautiful long
hair, and she is comely to look upon. She
expressly tells us that she is not skinny.
"What would one think," she asks
triumphantly, "of two French ladies, or two of
any other nation, penetrating into the wildest
recesses of Norway, and finding out new
roads for the natives? Who but English
could do it? Madame Ida Pfeiffer has been
rather active, but then she confesses to
being skinny and wiry, and was able to
wriggle about, unmolested; the English or
Americans are rarely of that make, and so
generally blooming and attractive, that it
must be a certain inborn right of conquest
that makes them nearly always the first to
penetrate into the arcana of countries
triumphantly." We learn that while supping
at a station, the circle of spectators, "looked
on in the most innocent manner at the
English ladies, occasionally whispering pynt,
megget pynt; which expression, fair reader,
should you be at all good looking (and if
British or American you must be so, the
proportion of ugliness to either being one
in a million), you will hear every five
minutes in Norway." Every five minutes,
therefore, her grace heard the Norwegians
in admiration of her beauty. In another
chapter we find that she opens her eyes in
the morning on a party of Norwegians who
admire her in her sleep, and whisper
"English, fairy, no! take care, hush!'.... At
length, a hand was stretched forth to touch
a lock of my streaming hair."

The English fairy thinks "it would not
be a bad plan to drive one's own horse in,
Norway two stations at a time, and fish for
one's dinner while he is resting." She likes
the Norwegians much, but considers that
"the women are certainly rather too
domestic, and look upon their husbands with
awe, as if they were another sort of creature."
And of the Lutheran custom which allows
marriage between an uncle and a niece, she
observes, "how superior the old Norwegian
way was of piraticaliy taking off some
stranger bride, as King Haco did the Greek
princess Ida."

The Duchess Fan is in fact, according to
her book, an extraordinarily fast person, and
she writes, in character, in a brisk and lively
way, with no more than a fast person's
regard for grammar:—"So, gentlemen, unless
you like pommelling with the trunk of a tree,
do not go 'trying it on' in Norway." "They
kept such a mysterious distance off at the
same time, and looked so awe-struck, that,
knowing their superstitions, we thought they
might take us for water-spirits, arriving at so
unearthly an hour; and, to dispel the illusion,
which was inconvenient, being hungry,
seized a spade and dug up a good dish of
potatoes, which the kone (goodwife) then at
once consented to allow the spirits to breakfast
off, nicely boiled, and served with her
best fresh butter. It was the first crop, and
they were quite new; but no one knows the
flavour there is in a potato unless they have
dug it up themselves in the fresh morning
air. Being rather convinced now we were,
alas! only poor mortals; and, even if angels
in disguise, had been obliged to take off our
wings and leave them behind, so could not
fly, they ordered a horse and little reise
kjewe, in which, the road being tolerable, we
went off to the house of a good Norwegian
couple we had become acquainted with at
Icrhin, on their journey from Trondhjem, and
who gave us a warm invitation to their
dwelling, which lay in the direct route of our
outlandish expedition. He was the priest of
the district," &c.

We have allowed her Grace to sketch
herself, and now, as friendly critics, may say
what kind things we please about the picture.
That two ladies could get on famously, as
travellers, without escort, over the Dovrefjeld
and the Sognefjeld, over the roughest ground,
among the most unkempt of the Norwegians,
is a fact creditable not only to Norway, but
to human nature.

We call attention to the book as one more
illustration of a doctrine we have often
preached, that men and women are good
fellows in the main. Our friend, the duchess,
has, we are quite sure, a frank, good-
tempered face, and, whatever she may make of
scarlet flannel, she knows how to become
friends with those whom chance makes
neighbours to her. By expecting good of
them she gets it. At the stations, in the
cottages, with guides on the road, in the